Joy in the Morning | Page 5

the
afternoon, of the same summer day. A newly married couple have
come to see the trench. He is journeying as to a shrine; she has allowed
impersonal interests, such as history, to lapse under the influence of
love and a trousseau. She is, however, amenable to patriotism, and, her
husband applying the match, she takes fire--she also, from the story of
the trench_.
He. This must be the place.
She. It is nothing but a ditch filled with flowers.
He. The old trench. (Takes off his hat.)

She. Was it--it was--in the Great War?
He. My dear!
She. You're horrified. But I really--don't know.
He. Don't know? You must.
She. You've gone and married a person who hasn't a glimmer of history.
What will you do about it?
He. I'll be brave and stick to my bargain. Do you mean that you've
forgotten the charge of the Blankth Americans against the Prussian
Guard? The charge that practically ended the war?
She. Ended the war? How could one charge end the war?
He. There was fighting after. But the last critical battle was here
(_looks about_) in these meadows, and for miles along. And it was just
here that the Blankth United States Regiment made its historic dash. In
that ditch--filled with flowers--a hundred of our lads were mown down
in three minutes. About two thousand more followed them to death.
She. Oh--I do know. It was that charge. I learned about it in school; it
thrilled me always.
He. Certainly. Every American child knows the story. I memorized the
list of the one hundred soldiers' names of my own free will when I was
ten. I can say them now.
"Arnold--Ashe--Bennett--Emmet--Dragmore--"
She. Don't say the rest, Ted--tell me about it as it happened. (She slips
her hand into his.) We two, standing here young and happy, looking
forward to a, lifetime together, will do honor, that way, to those
soldiers who gave up their happy youth and their lives for America.
He. (Puts his arm around her.) We will. We'll make a little memorial
service and I'll preach a sermon about how gloriously they fell and how,
unknowingly, they won the war--and so much more!

She. Tell me.
He. It was a hundred years ago about now--summer. A critical battle
raged along a stretch of many miles. About the centre of the
line--here--the Prussian Imperial Guards, the crack soldiers of the
German army, held the first trench--this ditch. American forces faced
them, but in weeks of fighting had not been able to make much
impression. Then, on a day, the order came down the lines that the
Blankth United States Regiment, opposed to the Guard, was to charge
and take the German front trench. Of course the artillery was to prepare
for their charge as usual, but there was some mistake. There was no
curtain of fire before them, no artillery preparation to help them. And
the order to charge came. So, right into the German guns, in the face of
those terrible Prussian Guards, our lads went "over the top" with a great
shout, and poured like a flame, like a catapult, across the space between
them--No-Man's Land, they called it then--it was only thirty-five
yards--to the German trench. So fast they rushed, and so unexpected
was their coming, with no curtain of artillery to shield them, that the
Germans were for a moment taken aback. Not a shot was fired for a
space of time almost long enough to let the Americans reach the trench,
and then the rifles broke out and the brown uniforms fell like leaves in
autumn. But not all. They rushed on pell-mell, cutting wire, pouring
irresistibly into the German trench. And the Guards, such as were not
mown down, lost courage at the astounding impetus of the dash, and
scrambled and ran from their trench. They took it--our boys took that
trench--this old ditch. But then the big German guns opened a fire like
hail and a machine gun at the end--down there it must have
been--enfiladed the trench, and every man in it was killed. But the
charge ended the war. Other Americans, mad with the glory of it,
poured in a sea after their comrades and held the trench, and poured on
and on, and wiped out that day the Prussian Guard. The German morale
was broken from then; within four months the war was over.
She. (Turns and hides her face on his shoulder and shakes with sobs.)
I'm not--crying for sorrow--for them. I'm crying--for the glory of it.
Because--I'm so proud and glad--that it's too much for me. To belong to
such a nation--to such men. I'm crying for knowing, it was my

nation--my men. And America is--the same today. I know it. If she
needed you today, Ted, you would